


Home and Away

by Zeke Black (istia)



Series: Snags [3]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, M/M, Old West, POV Female Character, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-07-01
Updated: 2002-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:10:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/Zeke%20Black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vin is working at a Colorado fort when he gets a telegram calling him home to Four Corners. Set five months after <em>Of Lakes and Rivers</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home and Away

**Author's Note:**

> This story was a fun little challenge I set myself to try writing a new genre (graphic het), though its main impetus was my love for seeing the main characters through an outsider's eyes.

###### San Luis Valley, Colorado, 1891

Alva McNab awoke in her usual state of momentary disorientation. Blinking her eyes and turning her head to the small window, she was reassured by the thin light bleeding around the sides of the shade that all in her world was as it should be. She always awoke naturally with the dawn, her body following the rhythms of the changing seasons as it had ever since she could remember, like a legacy from the Choctaw blood running in her veins. With knowledge of all being well and normal came immediate recollection of the particulars of where and when she was: in her own bed in the small room behind the fort's commissary, the day being Tuesday, a work day but not a heavy one in the average run of things, on a spring morning early in the year. Faint sounds of the waking camp penetrated the adobe walls, but there was no urgency at this hour. Being agile and quick in everything she did, it took her little time to ready herself for the day, which meant she could enjoy an extra half-hour of warmth and contentment lying abed.

Smiling, she stretched with sinuous appreciation of her good fortune, and took the opportunity to allow her bare foot to stroke the muscular calf lying close against her own leg. She moved her hand over the hard planes of the firm chest close against her side, enjoying the scant prickle of hair against her fingers. A small nipple rucked to hardness under the press of her palm and she could feel the increased thump of the heart within the flesh. She smiled again, knowing he was awake, knowing he awoke as she did with the dawn, but to instant alertness in his case.

She slid her leg across his stomach and moved to straddle his thighs, keeping the warmth of the covers tented over herself with practiced ease. His cock poked her belly with morning urgency. She pressed herself against it, trapping it between them and enjoying its increasing rigidity. She looked down into twinkling blue eyes and grinned, swooping down for a kiss from the inviting lips. His mouth tasted stale with last night's whiskey and the tobacco he'd chewed, but she knew her own wasn't any better and it was familiar and fine. She expected Mrs. Randall might make the master rinse his mouth out with lavender water or somesuch before he was allowed to snatch a morning kiss, but she wasn't any kind of lady, and glad of it, and glad of this man in her bed for whatever time they made for each other.

Vin Tanner had come to the fort for the first time late the previous summer. He'd been scouting and tracking for the army throughout the upper Rio Grande area, and had spent just over two weeks making trips out with the fort as his staying-over place. They'd met on his first day when he'd come into the commissary to buy shells for his Winchester. She'd liked what she'd seen. He was unshaven, but clean enough for a man recently off the trail, and the brown stubble highlighted the angled definition of his jaw line. He was over twice her age, with long rippled brown hair coarsening into gray and lying in scraggy tails on his buckskin-clad shoulders, but his body was as whipcord slender and wiry as a twenty-year-old's and he was a good-looking fellow.

It was his eyes, though, that had snagged her attention. Set in a web of small lines she knew had come from years of squinting in harsh southern light, the folds whiter than the tanned skin of the rest of his face, the eyes were as blue as heaven, bright with life and curiosity, and as talkative as his mouth wasn't. Those eyes had told her what he thought of her. She'd laughed at the flattery and brushed her hip unnecessarily against his as she led him to the locked case holding the bullets, jangling the keys and giving her own silent message with her eyes. They'd met in the canteen that evening, and he'd spent each night he was at the fort in her bed until the day he left on another scouting job and didn't return.

Until ten days ago. She'd looked up to greet a customer and found herself staring into bright eyes and it had felt as though he'd been gone only a few days, not the entire fall and winter. They'd moved naturally into the same routine of canteen in the evenings and her bed all night as though they'd known each other for years and this were their regular life.

His arms were around her back now, pulling her close with gentled strength so her breasts squashed against his chest. One of his hands moved into her hair, lifting long strands away from her neck, while the other stroked up and down her spine and over her behind, cupping a buttock as she moved. She arched her back, then pressed her mound against his firm balls, scratching them with her pelt and feeling them move against her as he gasped. His prick was leaking warm moisture onto her stomach. She pushed herself up, knowing what he liked, and closed her eyes with her own appreciation of it as he caught her left nipple in his mouth and sucked hard. His hand moved from her neck to squeeze and stroke her tit before he nuzzled his bristly face into the cleft between her breasts.

She had what Mrs. Randall referred to, delicately, as a womanly figure. That meant she had big tits and ample hips and behind, with a tiny waist between. She didn't have Mrs. Randall's willowy gracefulness, but her body had the suppleness of youth and the strength that had come from the laboring she'd done since becoming a woman at fourteen.

She never exulted more in her own self exactly as she was than she did when she had a man like Vin Tanner to exult in it with her.

His hand on her butt was urging her forward. She resisted for a moment, pushing back, enjoying the increased but still gentle urgency in the press of his large, callused hand against her flesh. His breathing was hitching, and she relented as she studied the intentness on his face as he moved his focus to her other breast. His mouth enveloped that nipple while his hand stayed with the first one, rough fingertips stroking round and round the damp pap as it cooled and dried. She let him urge her forward. She rubbed herself lightly up and down the length of his engorged prick, using the hair on her mound to build sensation for him. She paused to tease the unsheathed, weeping tip until he gasped, letting go of her nipple and sweeping her onto her back.

She laughed up into his sparkling eyes, which grinned back at her before they disappeared as he bent his head to kiss along her collarbone. His finger probed into the damp slit between her invitingly spread legs and found her bud with accustomed surety. He stroked it, drawing more wetness from her as he rubbed his hard cock between their bellies with building speed and determination. She pushed gently at him so he'd raise his torso to let her get her hand between them and grasp his prick. They set up the familiar rhythm together. His fingers rubbed her bud while his thumb stroked the sensitive folds of flesh roundabouts. Her hand gripped his sex with the force she knew he liked. Her thumb massaged the throbbing vein on the underside while her hand moved up and down his shaft. His own slickness made her strokes glide in step with their shared, mounting urgency.

He came to completion first, freezing to spurt white heat onto her chest, spattering her wobbling tits with pearly glop that rolled sluggishly down the slopes. He was panting, but he lowered his head to lick a smear of seed from her right breast, sucking the pap briefly before his unsteady breathing forced him to pull back. She reached to push the long hair back from his sweaty face, pausing to absorb into herself the contentment of seeing the gratification she'd brought him.

Her own need, however, wasn't yet satisfied. His hand was still lying between her legs, but not moving. She squeezed at it and gave a little shove upward with her pelvis to remind him. A smile graced the weathered but comely features, and his knowing fingers moved again on her bud. He shifted off her to lie alongside, freeing her to move her hips and her legs as she liked as the sensations built. She closed her eyes as he brought her inexorably to her own release. All the while, she felt the feather touches of his lips against her cheek and forehead and neck. His free hand tenderly squeezed her breast, a thumb rubbing the nipple, lavishing pleasure on her because he was that kind of man. When her rapture peaked, it was with the feel of his strong arms gathering her close in her moment of bliss and vulnerability.

He was just that kind of man. One of the rare kind.

They could rest together peaceably afterwards for only a few minutes since they'd used most of her spare half-hour. She pulled herself from the sweet warmth and companionship in the bed with the acceptance that came from having lived her entire life according to the demands of others. Ladies like Mrs. Randall might be free to stay in bed a mite longer on a morning if they chose, at least occasionally. The likes of Alva McNab, however, half-breed bastard of a Scottish sergeant and a displaced Choctaw woman, didn't even bother entertaining any such expectations for her life.

She pulled the pot out from under the bed and squatted over it. She sighed as she peed away the fullness inside her that had been approaching uncomfortable. When she was done, she lifted the pot back under the bed, careful not to spill any; she'd empty and wash it out later, when she had her midday break. She didn't offer the pot to Vin, knowing he didn't have the same urgency in the mornings as she did; anyway, his clothes made it less of a to-do using the outhouse.

As she stood and stretched her arms over her head, she spared a moment's gladness for at least not having had her woman's time since Vin had arrived, with rags wrapping her loins and interfering with the pleasure they brought each other. She gave the matter little thought, however. She'd long been contented with her place in life, both as a woman and as someone of Vin's station rather than the master's.

As she washed herself quickly but fastidiously in cold water poured from the ewer, paying special attention to her sticky belly and tits and rubbing a cloth unself-consciously between her legs, she looked at the attractive man rising from the bed and knew she wouldn't exchange a lifetime of being other people's servant to be Mrs. Randall instead of herself. As vivid blue eyes met hers from across the small room, they smiled at each other. Neither of them really needed words to know what was happening between them and what they were feeling.

She tossed him a damp rag. He wiped himself down with the same lack of self-consciousness she felt, and accepted with a nod of thanks the linen towel she offered. She braided her hair with habitual speed and pinned the long, thick tail into a knot on the back of her head. They dressed in silence, covering their bodies with the layers of clothing both convention and the coolness of an early spring morning demanded.

"Scouting north again today?" she queried, as they exited her room into a clear morning in which the sun was already strong enough to make her narrow her eyes.

He nodded. They walked together around the side of the building to the parade ground in the center of the quadrangle of low adobe structures. They walked without touching and with the space between them that was seemly for unmarried folk who didn't want people talking about what they might be getting up to in private. The only person around the back who had seen them leave her room was a child flinging stones at the twisted trunk of a cottonwood, and her eyes had shown nothing more than momentary curiosity before she'd turned away to scrabble for more pebbles.

The girl was probably lonely, being the last of her near-age group of the camp followers left. The fort was emptying as the Indian Wars lost their explosive edge. Sitting Bull's recent death and the bloody incident in Dakota hard on its heels had destroyed the Sioux ghost-dancers' rebellion. Forts across the frontier were being closed as the army's job of controlling the tribes neared completion.

In this area, matters had been winding down since the Utes to the west of the San Juan Mountains had agreed to move to the reservation awaiting them in the Utah territory, the move having eventually been completed without incident. Southern Colorado no longer needed the army's constant presence, and various outposts had already closed. Everyone in the fort was expecting the order to move out all remaining troops to arrive at any time. The commissary would be one of the last to close shop, but the master had already made arrangements to ship his goods east when the end came.

The world as she'd always known it was in the throes of change.

Vin's husky voice interrupted her brown study: "It's your early night tonight, ain't it?"

"I'm off at six." She smiled up at him as they paused in front of the building that housed the commissary. "If you're back by then, we could have dinner instead of just drinks in the canteen."

His own smile widened, the lines around his eyes deepening. His voice was the low, growly drawl that sent shivers down her spine as he said, "I 'spect I'll be back." He touched a finger to the brim of his sweat-dirtied slouch hat. "Ma'am."

He started to move away, and she was turning toward the door, hiding her own wide smile by putting her back to the busy main yard, when a youth skidded to a halt beside Vin, his voice breathless with urgency.

"Mr. Tanner? Mr. Tanner, a telegram come for you!"

She turned around, frowning, anxiety an abrupt cold wash over her. Telegrams passed regularly to the fort on army business, but ordinary folk didn't get them unless it was something major. Usually something bad.

Vin nodded to the messenger, who hurried back about his business. She took a step closer to Vin, watching his face as he unfolded the small piece of paper and read the words. She could see there were only a few. Telegrams were expensive; no one sent long ones, or on a whim. Vin's face was grim as he peered at the paper he held in one hand. He touched a fingertip to each black word as he read, and his lips moved as he sounded each one out. When he finished, he lifted his head, his eyes set distantly, and his face was even more somber.

"What is it?" She stopped herself from moving closer, although, if they'd been somewhere private, she would have touched his arm in support.

"I have to go home. There's trouble in my family. Sickness." He looked down again at the paper.

"I--I'm sorry." She didn't know quite what to say, suddenly wondering if she'd misunderstood everything about this man. "I thought you didn't have no family."

He lifted his eyes from the paper to look directly at her. "No blood kin, like I told you, but I got family anyways."

He'd told her about staying the winter with his old friend Chris. She'd reckoned from the contentment in him that hadn't been apparent when she'd met him previously that something good had happened between them. She'd thought they were perhaps like brothers who'd had a falling out and had come back together.

"Is it Chris?"

The appreciation of the understanding between them flared in his eyes momentarily before the bleakness returned. "It ain't Chris that's sick, but Chris's family, yeah. I gotta go. Nathan--he's a kind of doc, he sent the telegram--he says it might be bad."

He turned to face her squarely. They still didn't touch, standing in view of the bulk of the fort's population milling about getting the day going, but they knew each other well enough not to need to touch.

"I'm sorry, Alva. I meant to stick around until you left. It's just--" He broke off, looking again at the slip of paper, which was getting creased and worn in his nervously twisting fingers.

"Of course you gotta go. I know that. I'll miss having more time with you, but family comes first. We always knew it was just for a while, anyhow. I reckon Chris'll need you if his family's bad sick."

He nodded, lifting worried eyes to meet hers. "It's just, Chris, he lost his wife and son years ago and it was real hard on him. I dunno what he'll do if he loses--" He paused and licked his lips. "If it happens again. I just need to get home quick as I can."

She let softness creep into her low voice while keeping her demeanor correct for any eyes that might be seeing them. "I'm glad you got people, Vin. I hope everything'll be all right."

His bright eyes studied her. "Ain't heard from your uncle yet?"

She shook her head, but didn't let dejection slump her upright stance. "Don't matter none. I can stand on my own; been doing that since Pa died and done just fine for myself."

"Yeah, you have." His eyes supplied the caress they couldn't share in public. When they trailed down over her face, it was as though she felt a last touch of his warm fingers.

She shook herself out of her reverie. "You'd best go. But go careful, mind!"

He touched the brim of his hat, his head tilted. "If things work out, I'll come back. If I don't make it, you do good for yourself, Alvie. You do what's right for you."

"I will, Vin," she whispered. She firmed her voice. "Godspeed, my friend."

He strode away, his long legs eating up the ground as he angled across the parade ground toward the commander's office. She turned away so as not to be seen looking after him lingeringly, but she paused under the shadowed overhang of the porch. She waited until she could no longer hear the jingle of his spurs fading away behind her before she opened the door and stepped inside.

:::::::

Mrs. Randall made one of her periodic visits to the shop at mid-morning. The day had been quiet--business was falling off rapidly as the garrison was depleted--but Alva had busied herself with cleaning and make-work. No point in having spare time to be sorrowful that her evening would be lonely of the company she would have liked and her bed empty. She and Vin had both known from the start it wasn't love between them, and never would be. It wasn't some grand tragedy like those in the novels Mrs. Randall enjoyed telling her about on Monday and Thursday mornings when she helped the missus out in her quarters. But Vin was a wonderful companion, and a friend. It was only natural she'd miss him for a time.

Mrs. Randall seemed to have a similar idea, though hers was perhaps more over to the worry side of the matter. Taking advantage of the quiet in the store when Mr. Randall stepped over to the supply office to check on his order, the woman broached the topic in her delicate manner.

"I understand that Mr. Tanner was called away unexpectedly. I hope you won't be too disappointed at losing his company, my dear."

Mrs. Randall was in her early thirties, barely fifteen years older than Alva, but she always spoke in a matronly tone. She was a kindly woman, however, and treated her well, so Alva suppressed her smile and answered straightforwardly. She didn't see a need to beat around the bush pretending she didn't understand when it was clear the missus had guessed at the situation.

Others in the camp might suspect, too, but as long as she and Vin conducted themselves decently, most wouldn't say anything. Mrs. Randall must be excessively concerned for some reason to bring it up at all.

"Mr. Tanner's a good man and a friend, so, yes, ma'am, I will miss him. But we never intended nothing to be permanent or anything like that. It was just for a time, until our ways parted. Just happened they parted a little sooner than later."

Mrs. Randall looked uncomfortable. She cleared her throat and managed a smile, which Alva returned warmly, if warily. Alva held herself still and attentive as the lady, fiddling with a large button on her jacket, spoke again, her voice hushed in the quiet room.

"In that case, I do hope, my dear, that nothing, uh, permanent should result from...from the...friendship. You're so young to, uh, to be burdened alone."

So that was the worry that was wrinkling that fair brow! Alva spoke gently: "No, ma'am, no chance of nothing permanent. Mr. Tanner and me, we both know better than to do anything that will have...consequences neither of us want."

"Ah." Mrs. Randall looked relieved, if dubious. "Perhaps I misunderstood the nature of your, uh, friendship." Her cheeks were lightly flushed, her eyes cast down.

Alva considered her. Then, keeping her voice soft, she stepped out on a limb. "I doubt so, ma'am."

The lady's blush deepened. Pale blue eyes glanced up into Alva's, then skittered away again. Slim fingers in lace gloves, entirely inappropriate to the surroundings, disarranged a stack of soup cans on the counter.

"My education was deficient, I'm afraid, in such matters of...of avoiding the consequences of...."

Mrs. Randall's voice trailed off. She looked mortified, yet she stayed as though this conversation were somehow important to her. She had a son, Alva knew; she'd seen the daguerreotype in a carved frame on the sideboard in the master's quarters. The boy lived with relatives in Baltimore as safer than being in a frontier fort during the unsettled years. After two miscarriages, each one harder on her than the last, Mrs. Randall was possibly desperate for some means to avoid further consequences herself.

Alva hazarded again. "There's ways to do it that don't get the seed into the...the woman's privates."

Any minute now and the missus would have her blushing, too. Thank the Lord for the coppery skin she'd gotten from her Choctaw mother.

In the hushed stillness, Alva continued to speak in a low, even voice. "If the man don't mind, there's ways to pleasure each other with hands or, or rubbing, or...mouths."

Mrs. Randall dropped a can on the counter with a crash that made both of them jump.

"Oh!"

"No harm done." Alva picked up the can briskly and set it with the others to be neatened.

"I, I see. Yes. I'm afraid Mr. Randall's education was probably as deficient as mine in these...these matters." She gave an embarrassed laugh that ended in a gulp.

Mr. Randall was a good master and devoted to his wife, but he didn't strike a body as having much imagination. He probably thought sticking his prick in the hole and heaving until he came, then rolling off and falling asleep, was the only way anyone did it. She felt sorry for the gentle woman. She'd helped nurse Mrs. Randall through the last miscarriage, and had seen the toll it had taken. It would be better all round if the missus could avoid getting with child again; she'd heard the doctor say so. She didn't even try to think how the couple, who were as clearly in love as any of the folk in Mrs. Randall's novels, were dealing with the situation.

Mrs. Randall bobbed her head at her and turned to the door. Alva took one last step to try to help. "You might ask Mrs. Pettersen. Ma'am. I expect she might be able to, to give you some educating."

Mrs. Pettersen was not only the doctor's wife, but a good thirty years older than Mrs. Randall and without a prudish bone in her entire plain and forthright body.

Alva got a quick over-the-shoulder glance and nod before the lady fled the shop.

:::::::

When things happen, they always seem to happen at once: that's all she could think when Mr. Randall returned from the supply office with a beaming face and handed her a letter from the week's mail. She stared at it in astonishment, hardly able to believe in it but for the weight of it in her hand. She'd never had a letter before. She looked at the scrawled black writing and saw that, yes, it was addressed to her.

Her heart speeded up. It couldn't be--could it? She looked up at Mr. Randall, who was tying his apron around himself.

"Go on, girl. Won't know what it says until you open it!"

He held out a knife. She took it and slit the envelope carefully. Setting the knife down, she pulled out a sheet of heavy paper that was folded several times. When she unfolded it, bills fluttered onto the counter. Blinking in disbelief, she quickly read the note, written in the same scrawled but bold black hand as the address. She read it twice before taking it in and looking up at Mr. Randall.

"It's from my uncle. He said he's been away and only got my letter recent. He said it'd be good for us to meet, and he sent me fifty dollars to help pay my way."

Happiness was welling up in her. Family! She actually had real kin of her own. She'd given up thinking she'd ever meet any. Her mother's family had been killed off or scattered, remnants probably living somewhere in Indian Territory, but untraceable. Her mother had cast her lot with Alva's father when they'd hitched up. She'd gone with him from one posting to another, living with other camp followers in tent communities near the forts until she'd died when Alva was twelve. Then it had been her and her father until he'd died going on a year ago of a growth in his stomach. He'd written to his brother in San Francisco when he knew his time was coming, but they'd never heard back, and there hadn't been a reply to the note she'd sent later to say her father was gone.

"Well, there you go." Mr. Randall's voice was warm.

With the fort being closed, she'd been in a quandary what to do or where to go. Her father's intention had always been to go to California one day. To see his brother again, certainly, but mostly because he'd longed from childhood to see the vast Pacific Ocean. He'd lusted to be a sailor since he'd been a lad, but life had given him a weak stomach and no sea-legs and instead made his younger brother the seaman who sailed to far and exotic places. But, although he couldn't sail it, he'd never lost his passion to see the Pacific.

She could hear his dreamy Scots burr as he'd spoken on twilit evenings between puffs on his clay pipe: "Just think what a grand sight it must be, bonny lass. I crossed the Atlantic, and that was its own kind of hell, and now there's all this land to cross, but one day we'll see it, just like Cook and Vancouver and Bligh."

The missus wanted her to go to Baltimore with them, to continue to work for her, but Alva was teased with a desire to see that Pacific. She'd wanted to make her father's dream of showing it to her come true even though he'd been denied the chance by dying too soon. She'd pretty much made up her mind she was going to go west, using the small savings her father had left her, taking her chances. Her father had come all the way from Scotland and partway across America; she reckoned she could make it the rest of the way. She was young and strong and not afraid of work. Life with the Randalls in the east would be familiar and safe, but not exciting. She'd grown up in the closed environment of army postings, but a body couldn't stay protected forever--at least not if she wanted to live before she got old.

She looked at the money fanned on the counter, and felt a pulse of burgeoning excitement. Now she had an actual place to head for, and someone of her own waiting who wanted to see her enough to send her a sizable sum of money. Even if she didn't get along with them, at least she'd have a chance to meet her own kinfolk.

She picked up the money, surprised at the tremble in her hands. It was almost like fate was abruptly intervening with good on her side after too much bad. A smile blossomed as she met Mr. Randall's eyes.

"I reckon I'm heading west."

:::::::

A week later, she was on a stagecoach heading for a south-western New Mexico town that wasn't at all on her direct route to California. She'd made the break from the fort immediately, packing her few possessions and saying good-bye to her friends and Mrs. Randall, and left, eager to get on with her new life now she had a clear destination. When Mr. Randall had handed her into the rail carriage at the station in Alamosa, she'd thought her journey was set for San Francisco.

As the train had chuntered west, however, an impulse had made her gather her two carpetbags and descend to the platform in Durango. She'd boarded a connecting train of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad heading south into the New Mexico territory, then switched to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line for as far as she could go. The town Vin had told her about and called home eventually turned out to be just over five hours' coach ride from the railhead at Ridge City.

It had been an impulse, but she was glad she'd acted on it. She could have written to let Vin know what was happening, but she'd felt a desire to see if everything was all right with him now her own life was full of unexpected promise. The memory of his bright eyes dimmed with worry had haunted her as she'd made her preparations.

The coach entered the main street of Four Corners a couple of hours shy of dusk. The town wasn't as large as she'd imagined from Vin's comments, though maybe she should have expected that. He tended to feel uncomfortable in any group of people after a time, and the larger the congregation, the more hemmed in he felt. The town seemed like a nice size to her. Big enough to be bustling with people and things happening, but not overwhelming.

She suspected she was going to find San Francisco overwhelming, but the thought of it filled her with anticipation.

She took her bags and checked in to the inexpensive but clean hotel the driver pointed her to. She washed her face and brushed the dust from her clothes, then went outside and stood on the boardwalk, considering what to do. Now she was here, she felt a little foolish, uncertain how to find Vin without making herself or him a focus of gossip.

Her eyes settled on a saloon across the street as a possible source of information, but she dismissed going into it as a course of action, at least for now. A saloon in a town probably wasn't similar to the canteen at a fort, where men and the few local women mingled freely and no one was liable to mistake her for a dollar-girl--or, if a newcomer did, there were plenty of others who knew her to set him straight. She might knock boots with a man when a likely one caught her eye, but she wasn't any lightskirt and didn't intend to be taken for one.

She wandered up the street looking into store windows. So many goods! She paused to admire a green satin gown on a dressmaker's dummy in a wavy-glassed display window.

A burst of laughter drew her head around and she smiled as she watched a man grab a child by his hands and swing him round and round in a big circle in the entranceway to an alley across the street. When he set the child down, both he and the boy staggered dizzily, laughing together and flipping identical falls of thick black hair out of their matching eyes.

The man glanced up and met her gaze. He nodded amicably, a smile still wreathing his youthful face. She nodded back, noticing the sheriff's badge pinned to his vest, before she continued to stroll down the boardwalk.

Obeying another impulse, she turned back and went into the store to ask about Vin. The girl behind the counter just shook her head, indicating no knowledge of a Vin Tanner. Alva continued down the street, going into a pleasant looking restaurant for her evening meal. An inquiry about Vin to the waitress garnered another negative. So did a third one put to the earnest young ginger-haired minister of a Presbyterian church she noticed down a side street, and a fourth addressed to the receptionist when she returned to her hotel after dark, retreating from the chill night air and the smoky flickering of fires dotting the main street.

She half-wondered if she could have gotten the name of the town wrong, but the location was about where she'd pictured it from the little Vin had mentioned. She lay in bed listening to the muted night sounds of the town outside and wondered if she'd been wrong to make this trip. Granted, she hadn't made many inquiries, but it seemed odd that no one she'd asked had even heard of him.

Of course, ministers, hotel keepers, and dress store clerks might not be the most likely people to have heard of a wilderness wanderer like Vin Tanner! On that rueful thought, she fell asleep.

She got up the next morning resolved either to find Vin or leave a message and continue her journey. She couldn't trail all over a strange town asking after the man. She thought of the cheerful young sheriff she'd seen the day before and determined to ask him, and perhaps leave a message with him if Vin wasn't presently in town. Getting a sheet of notepaper and an envelope from the receptionist when she went downstairs, she paused in the lobby to write a note. She told Vin of her uncle's letter and her destination, finishing the note with sincere wishes that his own people would be all right. She signed it and folded the paper into the envelope, putting Vin's name on the front. Dropping it into her coat pocket, she went to find breakfast.

The waitress this time was an older woman who appeared also to be the cook. The restaurant was sparse of customers, and the woman was friendly. Alva decided to venture one last time.

"Pardon, ma'am, but do you happen to know where I might find Mr. Tanner?"

"Vin Tanner? Oh, you won't find him in town, leastways not often. When he's in the area, he usually stays out at the ranch."

Startled at actually finding someone who knew him, Alva sorted rapidly through the small amount of information she'd gleaned from Vin. "That would be Mr. Larabee's ranch?"

The woman nodded before moving to another table. Alva considered her options while she ate. She could still leave the note with the sheriff rather than being so forward as to trespass on Mr. Larabee's privacy, especially when his family was ill, perhaps seriously so.

But the thought of Vin's distress when he'd read the telegram rose in her mind. In truth, the compulsion to see how he was before she headed off into the unknown was stronger than merely the desire to let him know what had happened to her. Gathering her resolution as she left the restaurant, she returned to her hotel room. She changed into a sturdy cotton day dress that would best withstand a dusty ride, then made her way to the livery. Within half an hour, she was on a rented paint gelding leaving the north end of town with directions to the Larabee ranch.

The ride took longer than she'd expected, though it wasn't a great distance and the gelding had a smooth gait. She was a competent but not practiced rider. After the first hour in the saddle, however, she settled into the motion and urged the horse into a lope. The air was crisp but dry, warming as the sun rose higher in the sky, and she found a zesty enjoyment in the exercise.

It was still well short of midday when she paused at the top of a small rise looking down onto a house, barn, and a couple of large pastures with horses milling inside. Her nervousness and uncertainty returned. Smoke rose into the sky from the metal chimney on the house, but there was no other sign of human life. What was she doing, thinking of intruding on an unknown family at a dire time only to satisfy a whim? She couldn't imagine why she hadn't just left the note with the sheriff.

She was about to rein the horse away when the door opened and a man stepped out of the house. He pulled the door shut and moved toward the barn. It wasn't Vin. She hesitated, then sent her horse down the slope.

The man paused a few feet from the house, turning to watch her approach. As she got closer, she could see he was a deal older than Vin, at least ten years. For a man heading for his late fifties, though, he looked fit and strong, with a tall, spare body that moved with lanky grace. He was still easy on the eyes, too, with fine-cut features under a day's or more stubble that made him look disreputable, but didn't at all detract from his appeal. The thick dark-blond hair combed back from his forehead was receding at the temples but less gray-shot than Vin's long hair.

He didn't seem nearly as approachable as Vin. She noticed that difference right away as well as the aura of tamped-down danger this man exuded. She couldn't miss the silver-studded, well-worn black gunbelt that molded to his midsection like it was part of his body, or the way his stance was relaxed but alert, like a diamondback just before it strikes. He looked up at her as she reined to a stop beside him, but he didn't smile. His sober face and narrowed eyes were attentive. Up close, he looked worn out. Her heart lurched.

"Beg pardon for bothering you, sir, but is this the Larabee spread?"

He studied her for a long moment, his head on one side, then said, in a low raspy voice that reminded her of Vin's without the Texas drawl, "I'm Chris Larabee. What can I do for you?"

"I'm real sorry to intrude, sir. My name's Alva McNab. I was told in town Mr. Tanner might be here?"

His eyes stared into hers and she found herself blinking her gaze away, only to look back after a moment to see him still studying her. His eyes looked dragged down at the corners with tiredness and he still didn't smile, but his expression lightened a fraction and he nodded.

"Vin's mentioned an Alva. Fort up the Rio Grande?"

"Yes, sir. I was with Mr. Tanner when he got the telegram, and I was concerned."

His eyebrows lifted, and his voice was dry. "You come all this way because you were concerned?"

Heat rose in her cheeks and she was once again thankful for her dark skin. "No, sir. I'm headed to San Francisco. Since it was only a little ways off my route, I just wanted to let him know where I'd gone, save him a trip back to the fort, if he had an intention to return."

She found she couldn't bring herself to ask about the man's wife. It seemed far too presumptuous, especially with those penetrating eyes still boring into her.

"If Mr. Tanner isn't here, I'm awful sorry I bothered you."

She felt too embarrassed even to offer the note, and was ready to turn the horse and leave when the gruff voice stopped her.

"Vin went hunting this morning. Expected him back by now. You're welcome to wait."

As he stopped speaking, she was caught by a hesitancy on his hard face that didn't match the self-assurance he wore like a cloak. The look was gone almost immediately, however, and his voice was cordial as he continued.

"There's coffee on the stove, and beans heating. Come in and sit; he shouldn't be much longer. Your horse'll be fine in the corral." He nodded to an empty enclosure near the barn. "There's water in the trough."

Before she could decline the invitation, he had taken her reins and was waiting for her to dismount. He had an air of command like the sergeants and officers she'd grown up around, all of them men who simply expected what they said to be done. She slid down, feeling worse about this business by the minute. As he moved away with the horse, she straightened her dress, shaking dust and horsehair from the wide skirt and making herself as decent as possible before he returned to usher her into the house.

Warmth hit her like a wall as she stepped inside. The black box stove near the kitchen end of the main room was giving off waves of heat. Sick people felt the chill, so she wasn't surprised. There wasn't a bed in the main room, but she glimpsed the large spindled pine footboard of a bed in a room to the left as she moved inside behind Mr. Larabee. She got only a glimpse, however, as he went immediately to the doorway of the bedroom, blocking it. He paused, staring inside for a few seconds, then pulled the door closed. The latch snicked shut loudly in the quiet.

None of the heat would spread into the bedroom where it was needed until she left.

"I really don't want to put you out any, sir. I can wait outside perfectly fine."

He waved a hand toward the table. "Sit down. It ain't no trouble to give you some coffee. I'm not gonna leave a friend of Vin's trail-parched."

She stopped hovering near the door and perched on a wooden chair at the cluttered table. From where she sat, she could see a red rug covering the floor in front of a stone fireplace on the other side of the room, and a sofa and bureau that seemed finer than even Mrs. Randall's furniture. Two big cases full of books farther along that wall drew her eyes; she'd never seen that many books in one place before.

She blinked herself out of staring rudely when Mr. Larabee pushed aside a broken bridle and a stack of clean, folded cloths and set a mug of coffee in front of her. He poured another for himself. He moved to the stove and lifted the lid off an iron pot, stirring the fragrant contents with a wooden spoon. She could smell biscuits baking. He seemed familiar with seeing for himself, almost domestic--a view of the man that sat oddly with the spurs that clinked with each of his steps and the bone-handled Colt that rode prominently high on his right hip.

He'd been nothing but affable to her, but she sensed flint in the man not far under the surface, ready to flare into menace if struck the wrong way.

The muted sound of coughing came from the bedroom. Mr. Larabee paused, lifting his head and listening with focused attention like a stag scenting the air. She could tell it was an adult coughing. She wondered if the couple had any children and if they were sick, too. She wondered how bad it all was, and wished again she'd thought better before barging in like she was on a Sunday visit.

When the coughs stopped, Mr. Larabee's body relaxed and his eyes shifted from the bedroom's plank door back to the pot. He replaced the lid and sat down at the end of the table. He lounged back in the chair with his long legs spread wide. He took a cheroot from his pocket and rolled it between his fingers while his eyes studied her. The hint of a disarming smile warmed his tired face and let her know she wasn't in imminent danger of striking a lucifer against that flint in him.

Silence settled, and grew. Vin's closest friend appeared to have as little use for words as Vin did. She stopped herself from picking at a loose thread on her coat cuff and picked up the coffee mug instead.

"So, you're heading to San Francisco?"

She put down the mug and looked at him. "Yes, sir. My uncle's waiting on me. I've never seen him before, so I'm real excited."

"It'll sure be a change from living in army forts." His grin was contagious and she found herself immediately smiling back.

"That's what I'm hoping," she said, taking a chance and relieved when he laughed. The laugh was rich-toned and hearty and left his face set in appealing lines.

"Yeah, it sure will be." He chuckled again, a decidedly earthy sound. His eyes had a wicked light in them as he lifted the mug to his lips, and she figured he was smiling at something private he had no intention of sharing.

She had an abrupt glimmer of understanding of Vin's affection for this man. She sensed layers under the flint that hinted at rewards to be mined--if a person could get at them.

Feeling more confident, she asked, "You've been there?"

His eyes lost their reminiscent gleam as they settled back on her, and she felt as though a barrier had dropped between them and shut her out.

"Not San Francisco. Spent time in the Californio rancho country down south. I was there a good while, but that was a long time ago. Probably all changed now. Things have that tendency."

The amusement was entirely gone as though a light had been extinguished. He looked again just hard, weary, and unknowable. Sadness flooded her pores, and she wasn't sure why except for understanding that Mr. Larabee wasn't likely to view change in his life at this moment with the anticipation she did. She wondered if she'd feel like that about change one day herself, if she lived to his age and lost important things along the way. Gooseflesh prickled her arms despite the heat in the room.

Another coughing spell caught both their attention. This one lasted longer, and Mr. Larabee stared at the shut door until it was over. The faint cough sounded deep and painful, but dry. Her mother had died of the lung fever; Alva would never forget the sound of a wet drowning cough.

When the coughing stopped, Mr. Larabee ran a hand over his face and stood. He moved restlessly back to the stove, but didn't touch anything. The cheroot he'd been twiddling lay abandoned on the table. Its middle was crushed. He stood staring across the room with his back to her for several heartbeats before turning and favoring her with a smile that looked forced, but was pleasant even though it didn't reach his eyes.

"The biscuits're almost done. My beans aren't too shabby neither."

"Oh, no, sir. Thank you." She took a last quick gulp of the coffee and stood. "I should get back to town. Much obliged, sir, but I never meant to stay. If you could just tell Vin I was here, and--"

She put her hand into her pocket, about to draw out the letter, but the sound of a horse approaching made her pause. Mr. Larabee glanced out the front window, then opened the door and stepped out onto the porch.

"'bout time you got back. You got company."

She moved onto the porch beside him, welcoming the fresh air after the overheated room. Vin was on horseback, leading a mule with a gutted antelope tied to its back. She waited, her heart pounding, cursing herself again for ten kinds of fool for this unseemly venture.

"Alva?"

His eyes slid over her and went to the older man, resting there. Their eyes meshed. After a moment, Mr. Larabee nodded at him and turned away. He paused to look down at her.

"Good luck on your journey."

"Thank you, sir."

He went into the house, shutting the door behind him. Vin stared at her, surprise and anxiety warring on his face.

"I'm sorry, Vin. This was a stupid thing to do! I dunno what I was thinking, poking my nose in where it don't belong. Especially at such a time."

He swung down and gathered both sets of reins into one hand. "Lemme just settle 'em, and we'll talk."

She trailed along as he led his two animals to the corral where her paint watched the proceedings curiously but placidly. Vin worked efficiently, loosening the cinch on his gelding without removing the saddle and letting the horse free, then dragging the carcass from the mule and dumping it on a patch of grass before letting that animal roam free, too. He shut the gate and went to the pump in the yard, washing his hands vigorously. When he was done, he wiped his hands on his pants and offered her a drink from the tin mug set on the base of the pump. She shook her head. He drank, then led her to a bench on the porch.

She settled herself, and took a breath. "I'm on my way west, to my uncle in California. I wanted to let you know so you wouldn't head back to the fort--leastways not if it was to see me. I know I could've written, and I actually did write a note--" she drew the envelope out of her pocket "--but, truth is, I wanted to see you if I could before I went so far away. You looked so worried when you got the telegram. Since it's not all that far out of the way, I just wanted to see for myself how you were doing."

It sounded lame in her own ears. She looked down at the envelope she was fidgeting with in her lap, then paused as his big hand covered hers and squeezed gently. His fingers were cold from the pump. She got the courage to look at him directly. He looked almost as exhausted and dragged down as Mr. Larabee, with blackness smudged under his fine eyes and stubble bristling on his face. His hair was like a rat's nest. He smelled of dirt and sweat and the innards of the animal he'd recently gutted.

"Are you all right, Vin?"

His smile lightened the grim look of his entire face, lifting it into more familiar lines. "Yeah, I will be. Just a mite tired."

"Mr. Larabee, too, I reckon. His wife is gonna be all right, isn't she?"

"We're figuring the worst is over. Nathan come out late yesterday, said it should be all right now 'less there's a decline, but there shouldn't be. Just a matter of time, recovery time, I reckon."

"I'm glad." She smiled, and took his hand herself this time. His rough-surfaced fingers intertwined companionably with hers. "Did the children get it, too? I didn't see none, but Mr. Larabee shut the bedroom door."

"No, ain't no children. Anyhow, it was bad but not catching or nothing. Bronchitis. Never knew a cough could turn into something so scary." His voice sounded shaky, and he scrubbed the hand she wasn't holding over his face. The gesture left a streak of dirt on his cheek where the hem of his sleeve touched.

She noted his exhaustion again, and freed her hand to slide it across his broad shoulders, tightening her hold into a hug. They sat in silence for a minute before she made up her mind.

"You and Mr. Larabee both look wore out. D'you have anyone to lend a hand?" She hesitated, then added, "I know something about sickrooms. I looked after my Pa for months, and I helped out with Mrs. Randall, too, when she lost her baby. I'd be glad to stay and help with Mrs. Larabee."

He looked startled, then smiled the charming smile that lit up his handsome face from within, even tired as he was. "Nah. That's a real nice offer, Alvie, but you got a life to get on with."

"Putting it off a day or two won't make no nevermind since I'm here anyways. Just a day or so might let the two of you get some proper sleep. You both look about to keel over."

"That's real kind, but we can manage. We can get help from town if we really need it." His eyes drifted around the yard before settling back on her. "Glad you decided to go to San Francisco. I ain't been there, but I saw the ocean farther south a year or two back. It was awful pretty. You oughta drop me a note when you see it, tell me what you think."

"I will."

They sat for a time longer. They didn't say anything, but she could feel his body relaxing against hers, tension easing away. They were good together. It was too bad in its way they didn't feel anything more between them, but being friends was a fine and rare thing all in itself. She was glad of it and glad of the time they'd had together.

Her eyes lit on the antelope and she stood. "Come on. Let's get that carcass hung before I head back."

"I can manage--"

"Man don't gotta do everything alone when help is there and offering. Get up, you big galoot, and let's get the job done. We're burning daylight."

He chuckled as he rose to his feet and gladness soared inside her at seeing the eased look in his eyes. She led the way to the corral. Between the two of them, it didn't take long to get the carcass hung on a hook in the barn, and she managed to avoid doing more than smudge her dress in a spot or two, which hardly showed on the dark material. After they'd both washed up at the pump and had a drink of water, Vin went inside to tell Mr. Larabee he was taking her into town and she went into the corral and tightened the cinches on the horses.

They rode into town in the same companionable silence in which they'd done most things together. She felt lighter inside herself for having seen him and getting the news that the people he called family were going to be all right. It was good, after all, to have seen for herself that, beyond the bone-deep tiredness and vestiges of worry, he'd lost most of the fear he'd shown when he'd gotten the telegram.

That made her think of the older man with the flint inside him hiding whatever it was that meant a deal to Vin.

"Mr. Larabee seems like a tough man."

"Yeah, Chris is pretty tough, most ways."

She nodded, guessing at the exceptions. Even the strongest man can shatter like brittle glass if he's hit too hard on a particular spot. Vin had never mentioned Mr. Larabee's wife one way or another, but she suspected the fear he'd shown when he'd read the telegram had been for what the woman's death might do to his friend more than anything else.

She thought that Mr. Larabee himself might well be the brittle spot in Vin.

It was too personal to probe into, though, since Vin had never broached it with her, so she let the subject be. It was enough to see that fear in him gone now.

They made much quicker time to town than she had coming out. They stopped at the livery to drop off her horse, then Vin walked up Main Street with her leading his gelding behind him. They paused in front of her hotel, standing at the side of the street as the horse drank noisily from the trough. Not far from them, a cowpoke weaving an uncertain path away from the saloon stumbled down the steps to the street and narrowly missed being sprayed by a dog lifting its leg at the post of a hitching rail. Her eyes met Vin's and they grinned at each other in mute amusement.

She was about to say her farewell when a voice hailed them.

"Vin! I didn't know you were in town."

She turned to see the black-haired sheriff striding toward them. He was somewhat older than she'd thought the day before, a year or two older than Mrs. Randall perhaps, though his face was youthful and he walked with the same springy bounce she'd noticed as he'd played with the boy. He wasn't laughing today, however. His large hazel eyes were set on Vin beneath knotted brows.

"Nathan dropped by earlier to say Ezra's likely on the mend, though you know Nathan, he don't always want to commit himself. But that ain't what you're in town for, is it? I mean, Ezra ain't taken a turn for the worse? It sounded like he was over the hump and had the bronchitis beat."

Her thoughts swirled confusedly for a moment before clarity settled in her mind with dawning realization. She turned her head slowly to look up at Vin. His eyes were set somewhere between her and the sheriff, staring fixedly. His face was frozen except for a muscle that jumped in his cheek. He abruptly looked as distant and forbidding as Mr. Larabee had when she'd appeared on his doorstep and asked for Vin.

After a moment, Vin's eyes moved to the sheriff. His voice was flat.

"No, he's doing all right, ain't nothing changed since Nathan come out last night. I just come into town to see a friend. JD, this here's Miss Alva McNab. She's passing through on her way to San Francisco. Alva, say hello to JD Dunne."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Dunne."

"Likewise, ma'am." He shook her hand with a firm grip. He turned thoughtful eyes on Vin, then looked at her again. "Will you be in town for long?"

"No, sir. I'll be taking the next stage out. This has been just a sort of whistle-stop for me--though by coach, not train." She smiled at him, not feeling the need to elaborate, and he smiled back, apparently satisfied. The smile made him look more like the overgrown youngster he had the day before.

"Well, it was nice to meet you. Are you staying in town, Vin? Casey'd be glad to see you for supper."

"No, thanks, JD. I'll head on back out."

The sheriff bobbed his head and walked away. Vin was a still form at her side. She turned and saw the tension that made his entire body rigid and his face as remote as a stranger's. He seemed as untouchable as Mr. Larabee, as though the spiky barrier that had kept her away from the older man had slammed down to block her way to Vin as well.

She knew she wasn't in any peril, but, for the first time, it came to her head-on that Vin Tanner could be a dangerous man if anything threatened one of his own.

His eyes shifted at last to look down at her. They were like river-washed stones, holding none of their usual bright warmth. "Alva--"

She interrupted his rough, low voice by going up on tiptoes and pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek. When she settled back down flat, she stared closely into his eyes as she spoke with her own low intensity and quiet emphasis, not letting anyone else hear, but making sure he knew what she was saying: "I hope Mr. Larabee's wife makes a real swift recovery."

Gratitude and relief darkened his blue eyes just the way passion did, and he abruptly looked again like the man she'd known briefly, but well.

She smiled and poked a finger into his chest. "And you, mister, you look after yourself."

"Oh, yes, ma'am, I will do that. And you make sure you follow your own advice."

She let her fingers brush his hand, both of them tightening their grips momentarily, before she took a final look at a man she counted a good friend and would probably never see again, and turned and walked away. As she moved slowly up onto the boardwalk, she could hear him mounting his horse, leather creaking and his spurs jangling. She listened to the sound of the horse moving away as she opened the door to the hotel and went inside.

As she shut the door behind her, a thrum of excitement shivered up her spine at the thought of the new chapter in her life lying open before her waiting to be discovered.


End file.
